This is the completed drawing from the previous post. Once again scans do not do these drawings justice due to the glare from the crackle glaze and varnish I am using. Also a lot of the fine details are lost.
"Into thy hands, I commend my spirit."
This is a current work in progress that is ballpoint ink and watercolor on vintage paper called "It is finished." This paper holds up pretty well to my abuse without tearing but I'm not going to push my luck too much.
"It is finished."
I haven't forgotten about the Exotic Symbolism series. Here is the second ACEO (2.5" x 3.5") drawing. I wasn't happy with it for the longest. This colored pencil, micron ink, ballpoint ink and watercolor amalgamation didn't becoming appealing to me until I put a crackle glaze over it which took in the most interesting of places that don't show up on the scan.
The work in progress that's on my easel? Well that's going to remain my secret for now until I see how part two of my texture experiment takes. I'll update in a few days.
If you are light, you're alright. If you're brown, stick around. If you're black, get back.
While it has been a very long time since I have heard this, I am very well aware of its implications. Being of medium brown tone, I did not get teased very much about my skin color. I knew of classmates who were teased incessantly from elementary to high school about being dark. I also knew of classmates who were put on a pedestal by not only their peers but adults for having a lighter skin tone. I can remember classmates saying "she think she cute, who does she think she is" referring to a lighter complected classmate with long hair. Family members used skin lightening creams as I was growing up and family members/church members and the like doled out far more compliments to the lighter children than I received. I remember in church once, this girl about my age was visiting. She was light-skin with fairly long hair. My sisters and other church members stood around her as she did the Hammer dance and ended in a split (looking back...why was she doing this in church anyway?). Well I could do some things too and tried to show them but I was told to be quiet and get out of the way as they doled compliments on this other girl. I'd be lying if I said this didn't affect me...I wouldn't be telling the story now if it didn't. I try to be mindful of how I handle situations with the kids. Things stay with children, no matter how minor.
Anyway in my rare visits to CNN (as I have little interest in being constantly bombarded with foolishness and negativity), I came across a story discussing this sweet little girl. Anderson Cooper did a story where CNN recreated the doll test used to support the Brown vs the Board of Education case. The results were still similar to what they were all those years ago. How is it that we have not instilled in our children a love of self? What was interesting was the lady who was interviewing them, her reactions. Her attitude was like, "what are these parents doing to their children?" as though the parents were wrong. When it comes to race specific issues like this, I don't expect other races to understand and I do not agree with them even getting involved because they are on the outside looking in without understanding the true dynamics of what's going on.
I try to expose my children to mostly ethnic influences, preferably black. My children love Little Bill but as a whole it is not easy to find modern day examples of positive Blackness. My children watch Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, which I grew up on, and love it. They mostly (thankfully) ignore the television in favor of playing with each other or crafting with me so it is easy for me to monitor and control what they watch. I need/seek positive Black families to show my children, our own included. I want my children to have the sense of pride in being Black that seems fleeting these days. It's sad but a constant reality for many Black women and men. How do you grow to accept an image that is constantly portrayed as something bad? Nappy hair, darker skin...what do you do when these images just aren't beautiful to you? Situations like this remind me of when I first went natural. It was not popular or "the thing" as it seems to be now. Attitudes towards natural blackness have certainly become more friendly since 2004 when I cut off my past shoulder length relaxed hair to rock a short two inch nappy fro.
These and other things that have been going on have been weighing on my mind. I think so much it's amazing I'm able to get any drawing done. I had to get a bigger purse to carry around a larger sketchbook and a lined journal. My husband was driving me to work last week and I was just leaning back watching the scenery go by. This image came into my mind and I just had to sketch it as it came. I knew I would pretty much stick to the sketch. I made one significant change in the pose since. I started it this morning and it is still drying on my easel. It's going to take awhile to finish this one...I'm dealing with multiple mediums and I didn't do a trial run. Now there was a drawing sitting on my easel for the longest, this drawing of an old woman expelling her spirit. I was never quite happy with it so like many others it is being recycled into this new work. It's been torn, burned, decoupaged and gessoed and I still haven't started the new drawing yet. If the new drawing doesn't fit my fancy I have discovered that in its new cropped state the old woman makes for a much better drawing so it's a win win either way.
I am sorely in need of a proper update. My process is slow. I've been battling colds and other distractions of late but no excuses. My next post will have a record of the work I've done up until now and my current work.
I haven't gotten much drawing done but I have gotten inspiration! I went to the flea market about two weeks ago to sell. One of the vendors inspired my newest venture: Art Cards featuring the Adinkra symbols. Now I have done work with the Adinkra symbols before a long time ago in pastels. The work, while attractive, felt too contrived for my liking so I abandoned the process/approach but never the idea. After seeing the artwork on the African Tarot cards that she was carrying, the idea of Adinkra cards seemed more and more the way to go. A series with the symbols and an image that doesn't immediate convey the meaning unless the viewer digresses on it beyond what's presented. This is a project in which I can take some of the wisdom of my youth (much of which is not readily understood to the uninformed) and incorporate it into my work. I am still sketching out the details and will update when I have a good grip on my ideology and approach.
I'm keeping track of the various series that I have going on.
The "Lost Within" Series is never complete. Actually all of my work still falls under this series' artist statement. It is solely a b/w exploration. I love working with charcoal and ink. I will continue to explore ancestral connections and the psychological effects of the past on the present day condition of blacks throughout the diaspora. I will continue to use children as that vehicle for exploration.
The "Awakening" Series is very much a work in progress. It deals with spirituality and religion. Many of my sketches haven't come into fruition primarily because what's an objective look at reality is for me is someone else's spiritual cornerstone and staunch belief system. I've been on the receiving end of challenging various belief systems before especially Christianity and it is not pretty. I won't engage in any verbal exchanges any more...I'll let me art speak for me. My goal is to make an image that is immediately understood as something far from what it was ever intended to be. An African child in bondage on a page telling the story of the Israelites sojourn in bondage are images that don't often correlate. It is representative of not only the physical bondage but the psychological bondage that many African Americans are still gripped by. The story of our true salvation is shrouded in the guise of the Christian (and other) religions which provided the ultimate tool to enslave the minds of our ancestors and make them better tools of service. It is a tactic that has worked to present day. A young black woman on a page depicting the wealthy parishioners as those being closest to God and that God was closest to them. Deeper reflection on that ideology creates an uncomfortable juxtaposition of race and spirituality. I have another image that was hard for me to draw last year. It was originally intended to be a part of the Lost Within series but the research for it was too difficult for me. It still is...also the backlash for such an image to portray to the world is not one that I'm prepared to take yet. They will remain sketches in my sketchbook until further notice. I'm debating on whether to make it large and intrusive or small and intimate. As far as the technique, I love this approach. I get to be loose and tight, conventional and experimental. I'm contemplating a larger piece in charcoal/ink/gouache coupled with excerpts from James Weldon Johnson's The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man.
The "Adinkra" Series...I won't call it that officially but it is just a fledgling idea. I did some sketches and drawings schematically but to be honest...I've been pretty much stagnate. I collected some pages to be drawn on so I will be organizing. I've been doing some life studies---there is nothing I love more than to people watch. My husband says I'm being nosy. He's concerned that people might react adversely to it but in my experience (nearly ten years) no one ever has. As a matter of fact most people are flattered. This past weekend I got caught in the act by a vendor next to us drawing some passersby and he was surprised when I pulled out a sketch of him! He got so tickled! Then he asked for my card and the possibility of a commission of his wife.
Now that I think about it...I guess it is kind of being nosy lol.
